The /etc/rc.conf file is the system configuration file for Arch-specific settings. The format is bash. It contains several commonly-edited settings such as timezone; keymap; kernel modules; daemons to load at start-up; etc. It is split up in a few sections to categorize configuration settings: localization, hardware, networking and daemons.
TIMEZONE=
Specifies the timezone. The setting takes effect on boot by ensuring that /etc/localtime is a symlink to the correct zoneinfo file. Possible timezones are the relative path to a zoneinfo file starting from the directory /usr/share/zoneinfo. For example, a German timezone would be Europe/Berlin, which refers to the file /usr/share/zoneinfo/Europe/Berlin.
Note: if empty, /etc/localtime is not changed. This is useful if /etc/localtime is maintained manually or by a third-party tool; or if there is no reason to change it from what was set during install.
Default: empty
HARDWARECLOCK=
How to interpret/update the hardware clock. (used by hwclock)
Options:
-
empty: fall back to the value in /var/lib/hwclock/adjtime, which defaults to UTC. This is recommended as other users of hwclock might change the adjtime file and hence cause rc.conf and adjtime to be out of sync.
-
"UTC": most robust, allows operating systems to abstract local time and ease DST.
-
"localtime": apply timezone (and DST) in hardwareclock: discouraged. Choose this if you dualboot with an OS which cannot handle UTC BIOS times correctly, like Windows (note that recent Windows’es can use UTC, which is preferable).
-
any other value will result in the hardware clock being left untouched (useful for virtualization)
Default: empty
KEYMAP=
Defines the keymap to load with the loadkeys program on boot. Possible keymaps are found in /usr/share/kbd/keymaps. Please note that this setting is only valid for your TTYs, not any graphical window managers or X. KEYMAP in /etc/vconsole.conf takes precedence.
Default: empty
CONSOLEFONT=
Defines the console font to load with the setfont program on boot. Possible fonts are found in /usr/share/kbd/consolefonts (only needed for non-US). FONT in /etc/vconsole.conf takes precedence.
Default: empty
CONSOLEMAP=
Defines the console map to load with the setfont program on boot. Possible maps are found in /usr/share/kbd/consoletrans. Set this to a map suitable for the appropriate locale (8859-1 for Latin1, for example) if you’re using an UTF-8 locale and use programs that generate 8-bit output. If you’re using X11 for everyday work, don’t bother, as it only affects the output of Linux console applications. FONT_MAP in /etc/vconsole.conf takes precedence.
Default: empty
LOCALE=
This sets your system language, which will be used by all i18n-friendly applications and utilities.
See locale -a (or locale.gen) for available options. LANG in /etc/locale.conf takes precedence.
If unset, it falls back to the C locale.
Default: empty
DAEMON_LOCALE=
-
If set to yes, use $LOCALE as the locale during daemon startup and during the boot process.
-
If set to no, the C locale is used.
Default: "yes"
USECOLOR=
Use ANSI color sequences in startup messages
Default: "yes"
MODULES=
Modules to load at boot-up. To blacklist modules, see "man modprobe.d".
Default: ().
USEDMRAID=
Scan for FakeRAID (dmraid) Volumes at startup.
Default: "no"
USEBTRFS=
Scan for BTRFS volumes at startup.
Default: "no"
USELVM=
Scan for LVM volume groups at startup, required if you use LVM.
Default: "no"
HOSTNAME=
Hostname of machine. Should also be put in /etc/hosts. The contents of /etc/hostname (if not empty) takes precedence.
Default: empty
The following settings help you setting up a wired network.
interface=
Name of device. Use ip addr or ls /sys/class/net/ to see all available interfaces.
Default: empty
Required for manual configuration as well as DHCP.
address=
IP address.
Default: empty
Required for manual configuration, empty for DHCP.
netmask=
Subnet mask.
Default: empty (which means 255.255.255.0)
Optional for manual configuration, ignored for DHCP.
broadcast=
Broadcast address.
Default: empty
Optional for manual configuration, ignored for DHCP.
gateway=
Default route.
Default: empty
Required for manual configuration, ignored for DHCP.
Static IP example
interface=eth0
address=192.168.0.2
netmask=255.255.255.0
broadcast=192.168.0.255
gateway=192.168.0.1DHCP example
interface=eth0
address=
netmask=
gateway=The following options might be needed for advanced use-cases.
NETWORK_PERSIST=
Setting this to "yes" will skip network shutdown. This is required if your root device is on NFS.
Default: "no"
NETWORKS=
This functionality is deprecated, please refer to the netcfg documentation.
DAEMONS=
Daemons to start at boot-up (in this order) - prefix a daemon with a ! to disable it - prefix a daemon with a @ to start it up in the background
If you are sure nothing else touches your hardware clock (such as ntpd or a dual-boot), you might want to enable hwclock. Note that this will only make a difference if the hwclock program has been calibrated correctly.
If you use a network filesystem you should enable netfs.
Default: (syslog-ng network crond)